the dog days are over

NICK AND ELLIE ARE DONE.

There are no more words.

Today was pretty brutal -- for all of you who are wondering, idly, why I don't write forty pages every day, it's because the first five pages are reasonable, the first ten pages are mostly manageable, and every ten-page increment is carved out of my brain in such a way that those processing centers are truly no longer capable of processing anything. I drove home last night in a daze, thankful that I could use cruise control (and, btw, I saw FOUR FUCKING DEER by the side of 280 at one a.m. last night -- if I had hit one in California, where I have never seen a deer on the freeway before, I would have been truly upset). I woke up this morning in even more of a daze. Everything felt foggy and weak...and yet I had to rally because I had lunch plans that required me to be coherent and presentable.

So I showered, put on a cute skirt (old) and some brown sweater leggings (new) (oh, and a top, also old - I didn't go to lunch like a bare-breasted fertility goddess, although someone there apparently thought I left my job to have babies rather than write books, so maybe I'm exuding some pheromones). And then I drove down to the water to have lunch with Gretchen, one of my former directors. She was in fine form, and it was good to catch up with her and talk about life. Then I had a second lunch, which just consisted of drinking a diet coke while Katrina ate her first lunch. Then Katrina made me a latte (fancy), I came home and took care of some calls and errands, and then I stared stupidly at my laptop trying to figure out how I was going to think clearly enough to finish this book. Clearly that didn't go well, since when I decided to make a piece of toast with peanut butter, I dropped the bread on the kitchen floor, then picked it up and rinsed it off before putting it in the toaster. Weird.

By the time Terry got home at seven, I was basically nonverbal and unable to tell her anything at all -- so I stopped pretending and came upstairs, where I slogged, successfully, for five hours. And now, the book is done and off to my agent, and I am going to sleep the sleep of the just, then get up tomorrow and try to tackle everything I need to do before I leave for Iowa in five days. And maybe I'll celebrate the book being done -- or maybe not, since it won't feel real until my brain is functioning again. Goodnight!

there are many things that i would like to say to you but i don't know how

SO CLOSE TO DONE OMG. So close. I was at Stanford library from 1pm to 1am, but it closed at 1am (it's finals week), and I was half a scene away from the end, but I couldn't stomach the idea of moving to the twenty-four-hour study room to finish. So, I drove home, feeling strangely surreal and out of words -- my mind felt just a little empty, in an odd way, as though whatever voice produces my running monologue was totally out of words due to my writing binge.

So, obvi, I did nothing else today; I woke up lateish, ate something, showered, and was at the library by 1pm. I stayed there for twelve hours, with a break to get a burger at the Treehouse (it's like I'm a student all over again). And I think I produced forty new pages from the tattered, bleeding remnants of earlier drafts. That's the most I've ever done in a day, and utterly unsustainable -- I just hope I have enough left tomorrow to finish that scene, reread and proofread what I did tonight, and format it so that I can send it to my agent.

But now, I really must sleep; I have lunch plans tomorrow morning, and then it's back to the slog (although I may slog in the city, in hopes that I can be done by six or seven and eat something tastier than a Treehouse burger). Goodnight!

but i won't stop until that boy is mine

I need to go to bed right now - I need to get up in eight hours to get ready for this wedding that I'm in (have you heard about it?), so sleep is vital if I'm going to look great in the photos without presenting too much of a challenge to the makeup artist (although if she's an artiste, she's surely up for it). Today was a lovely celebration of Lauren and Nathan (mostly Lauren) - I hung out with Lauren this morning and made her some eggs using whatever I scrounged up in her kitchen, and then we went down to Carmel-by-the-Sea (see previous post) for a lunch hosted by her grandmother (whom they all call Beauty) for the bridesmaids and immediate female relatives. It was totally lovely, and the food was to die for, which seems to be a theme at this wedding.

Post lunch, Lauren, Devon (her twin), and I went for manis and pedis before heading back to the ranch (which sounds waaaaay more rustic than it is) for rehearsal. After we were properly rehearsed, we went into Carmel Valley (see previous post) for the rehearsal dinner, which was v fitting with the vibe for this weekend - a fabulously gorgeous venue and a casual but delicious food offering. They had a taco truck (which doesn't do justice to how delicious the tacos were - I should have had ten of them), and the brought out hot chocolate and churros to finish it off. And my toast went quite well, if I do say so myself - I achieved the optimal alcohol:coherency ratio and was able to say what I wanted to say, so yay.

Post dinner, we adjourned to a wine tasting room across the street for welcome reception for everyone who was already in town, where I reunited with Terry after a v traumatic 32 hours apart. And I continued my quest to meet everyone at the wedding - I should have gotten them to stamp a card for me or something. We shut the place down (sorry, liver, and sorry face, which has to try to not look puffy in the photos tomorrow) at 10:30ish, and then John, Jess, and I played dice in the game room at the ranch (again, not rustic) and caught up since I've been a total hermit for days (weeks, months). But now, sleep. And tomorrow, if all goes well, Lauren and Nathan will get married - and, since I introduced them, they will owe me forever. Yay to indebtedness! Goodnight!

blow me one last kiss

While I wasn't hungover, precisely, I was pretty much useless today. I slept until sometime after ten, when I awoke to the smell of smoke and the sound of men being stupid. The window above my bed (which I can't see out without standing on the bed, so the view doesn't matter) looks out over the garage/carport area of the apartment complex behind us, and some dudes were back there attempting to get some sort of homemade grilling apparatus going. Needless to say, I was displeased. But, awake, I forced myself downstairs and finished cleaning up from the party, which took v. little time since I'd taken care of almost everything yesterday. Then I enjoyed a sandwich with some of the last bits of leftover deli meat (yum), contemplated life, and then attempted to write.

But I didn't attempt very hard, which meant I accomplished nothing. All this laser determination and focus that I'm seeing from Olympic athletes is not rubbing off on me. However, tomorrow is another day, one in which I will have no traces of hangover, and I'm excited to see where Nick and Ellie take me next. I typed up everything I wrote two days ago, mourned the fact that I somehow wrote a thirty-page sex scene that I will probably need to cut back, and am now moving on to the next segment of the book.

Today, though, I took a nap. Then I talked to zee parents for an hour and a half. Then I read part of a research book: "Jane Austen's Town and Country Style," which is interesting, but I lost interest when the Olympics came on and the book had a too-long segment on architectural philosophies. The Olympics made me slightly sad tonight, since most of the people whom I wanted to see win gold did not win gold (including Cassidy Krug, whom I actually took a continuing studies class with; she was in medal contention in diving, but it didn't end up going her way). The Olympics giveth, the Olympics taketh away.

And now I really should sleep; I'm going to power through as much manuscript as possible this week, so wish me luck. Goodnight!

settle down, it'll all be clear

YAY OLYMPICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So today was my Olympic Rings Cakes party, and it was a smashing success. It all came together beautifully; baking four of the five cakes yesterday no doubt helped, as did buying stuff for nice sandwiches rather than attempting to make supper. By the time the first guests showed up, everything was basically in place and done and lovely (and my hair was tinseled with the Olympics colors) - perhaps I'll post pictures tomorrow, but tonight I'm too tired to figure out zee technology.

However, I was delighted with both the quantity and quality of the attendees - approximately thirty people showed up, which was approximately enough to eat half the cake I baked. We officially cut the cake at eight p.m., but people started showing up two or three hours before that and stayed until after midnight, so that's quite a showing. And there was much watching of Olympics, much rejoicing over eating cake rather than training for decades for small, fleeting bits of glory, and much drinking of rum and other beverages. I made a giant pitcher of mojitos (which were utterly delish), and a vat and a half of mai tais (involving six cups of rum - I usually don't measure mixed drinks using my 4-cup pyrex measuring cup, but it was quite helpful for this party). Once the food coloring started pouring, shit got real, although we only did one shot this year (and that one was diluted - more like half a shot) - a rum/club soda shot with a squeeze of lime and a bit of salt, dyed light blue like the ocean, with one single drop of black food coloring diffusing through it, which was called the Deepwater Horizon. Not yummy, but certainly entertaining enough to deserve a medal.

Speaking of medals, I had twelve or so that I gave out whimsically and capriciously - for such things as arriving first (Felicia), parking the farthest away (Oniel), knowing an Olympian (Chandlord), wearing all five Olympics colors (Adit - who else?), saying that if we can't be Russia we might as well be out of the volleyball competition (Tom), etc. It is entertaining to watch people get mildly competitive over something with no rules and no tangible monetary value - but I'm sure I would have been striving for a medal had I not been the equivalent of the IOC (and like the IOC, I allowed myself to be seduced by my own power and ended up giving myself a medal, yay).

As I said, the last group left around 12:30, and I might have been tempted to go with them - but I was quite happy at my current state of inebriation, and since I'm on deadline and need to write furiously tomorrow (and all next week), I decided to be a good girl and stay home so that I wouldn't die. After they left, I ended up cleaning the apartment - perhaps I should have just gone to bed, but I was just drunk enough to not mind cleaning, and not tired yet, so I put everything away. I need to run the dishwasher in the morning, wash a few handwash only things, and scrub down the counters (after I buy paper towels, since I made a rookie mistake and forgot to buy more before the party) - but cleanup was super easy, and now I don't have to dread getting out of bed and facing the kitchen in the morning.

So beyond cleaning, I really can't recount how delightful of an evening I had - and I didn't even really get all that drunk, despite the vat of delicious mai tais, because I was just so darned excited for zee party that I kept forgetting to drink my beverages. I'm already planning for my Sochi 2014 party - I believe borscht is a requirement, and I'll have to do vodka drinks instead of rum drinks (not that rum is really a British drink, but Britain does still have Jamaica as part of the commonwealth, and there was a lot of rum drunk by the British navy, so I'm making a tenuous connection there). Anyway, it will be super fun - so save the date for February 15, 2014. Goodnight!

skyfall

Another day, another successful media blackout. I slept ridiculously late (probably because I didn't go to bed until 2:30am), but I won't let myself regret it because this afternoon I started to feel like I might be getting sick...so I immediately pounded some orange juice and hoped for the best.

But beyond that, today was all Olympics. I spent most of the afternoon watching tivo'd coverage from late last night/early this morning, which was mostly team equestrian, which I ADORED. The commentators were particularly good - not annoying, but the female commentator was also a bit catty about how the riders looked, so that entertained me. And I got to see lots of shots of my beloved Prince Harry (aka Prince Hot Ginge), who had turned out to support his cousin Zara as she rode for Great Britain (obvi). I took a break after that to leave the house briefly and run an errand, and then I came back and attempted to work on Nick and Ellie. I'm still a bit stymied with what I'm changing, but I think I've got it more figured out, so hopefully I can move forward tomorrow.

Tonight was all about primetime Olympics coverage, which unfortunately doesn't start until eight p.m. and lasts until midnight. But I watched it all, and was v. pleased with the results - and especially pleased that it felt like old Cold War times, since women's gymnastics came down to the US, Russia, and Romania (yay nostalgia). Then I worked on Nick and Ellie some more, caught up on social media, watched the new James Bond trailer (awesome), found out that 'The Hobbit' is going to be three movies (theoretically awesome, although I don't see how that's possible), and am now going back into media blackout in preparation for tomorrow. Goodnight!